When Does Localization Become Discrimination?
By Greg Rosner
Recently, Microsoft published an ad in Poland which showed this picture (left) of three people in a conference room. After publishing the ad, someone in the ad agency’s global network suggested they change the photo and replace the black man with a white man to make the ad more appropriate for the Polish [...]
‘Worst’ translation about, wait for it …Babel!
Liverpool and Dutch fooballer – sorry, soccer player – Ryan Babel (no joke!) has hit back at reports linking him with a move away to Ajax, stating that the English Press had sourced woeful translations (nothing to do with us, thanks) that ultimately created the unfound rumours.
When questioned about his intermittent involvement in recent Liverpool [...]
For the grade A, B, C or D, answer A, B, C or D…
Interesting story in The Telegraph about a school not too far away from Applied Language Solutions Head Office (no connection!), that has suspended five teachers for helping pupils to pass language examinations.
The language specialist high-school in Little Lever, near Bolton, will also withhold results for papers submitted for French, German and Spanish examinations.
James Stangroom, Applied [...]
Gaelic translation for Scottish Parliament, via India
Just seen a report that Scottish Parly chiefs have gone and outsourced a Gaelic Translation project to a company based in India – via a UK based company (!) – only to use locally sourced linguists (local to Scotland) for the job. This is despite Holyrood employing two in-house Gaelic speakers, of course, prompting the [...]
A sad day indeed as spammers go multilingual…
Diluted viagra?! Spammers have been using machine translation to convert their campaigns into major Eurpoean languages – to presumably little effect and great annoyance to their new found customers (victims).
La Tribune in English (sort of)
Leading French newspaper La Tribune have launched English, Italian, German and Spanish versions of their website. The only downside is that they have used machine translation.
While machine translation is great for smaller businesses and hobby sites to help their users get the gist of a site, it is not what you would expect from such [...]
Hayden Panettiere’s Misspelt Tattoo
Yet another celebrity has made the mistake of having the wrong translation permanently inked on to their body.
Hayden Panettiere, the 19 year old star of Heroes, has joined the growing list of celebs including David Beckham and Rihanna who have had a misspelt translated tattoo.
The actress meant to have “to live without regret” translated into [...]
Gazprom Highlight Need for Brand Checks
Russian energy giant Gazprom recently announced a joint venture with the state run Nigerian energy company NNPC. Unfortunately they didn’t think it wise to get their chosen brand checked for inappropriate or culturally offensive meanings throughout the world.
